I'm Goin' Sane

Mr. Big played their last show at the Tokyo International Forum in February 2002, and Eric Martin recorded this album with his own band while rehearsals for that farewell tour were waiting for him. Speaking to BARKS, he described cutting the basic tracks at a studio called the Groove Room, producing the sessions himself while recording his vocals, and finishing the master at eight in the morning on the last day before leaving straight for the farewell tour. Some of the songs went back to the time Mr. Big were making Actual Size: Martin named "My Disease", "Who Am I Supposed to Be?" and "Spaceman" as songs he believed in that had not made that record, and "My Disease" had been written a few years earlier with Jack Blades of Night Ranger. The credits name the Eric Martin Band's guitarist Mark Holley, bassist Marc Chole and keyboard player Paul Dorr, and most of the songs were written by Martin with his long-time collaborator André Pessis. The Japanese edition runs to thirteen tracks, and its back cover marks the last two, "Fly" and "In Case You Didn't Know", as bonus tracks for Japan only. The obi strip gave the title in Japanese script, announced a Japan-first release and noted that "Fly" was the song of a commercial for Asahi Super Dry beer; Oricon's data likewise lists the 2002 Super Dry commercial as the album's tie-in. Canyon International, a Pony Canyon label, released the album in Japan as PCCY-01557, priced at 2,548 yen including tax. Frontiers Records issued it in Italy the same year with "Only a Moment" and "Just What I Needed" in place of the two Japanese bonus tracks. In November 2002 Martin re-recorded "Bigger Man", "There Goes the Neighborhood" and "Fly" for the acoustic EP Pure, and in January 2003 he played Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo. Pony Canyon reissued the Japanese edition as an HQCD (PCCY-50045) on 21 January 2009.